City officials say they will release videos to the public Friday related to the police-involved shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old suspect who was fatally shot in the back last week as he tried to flee officers. The 18-year-old was suspected of stealing a auto that struck the officer’s vehicle during the chase late last week, according to police. O’Neal was behind the wheel of a supposedly stolen Jaguar when he’s said to have crashed the auto into two police vehicles.
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None of the 50 departments had policies that fully satisfy the criterion for limiting officer review of body-worn camera video prior to filing their reports of an encounter. Eddie Johnson has since stripped the three unnamed officers of their police powers, pending investigations. The city’s policy isn’t made available to the public online, doesn’t have clear guidelines about when officers are required to record interactions with the public, doesn’t mention privacy, doesn’t prevent officers from watching videos before making a statement, doesn’t require footage to be deleted after a certain period of time, doesn’t prohibit tampering or misuse, doesn’t expressly make videos available to people filing complaints against the police, and is silent on facial recognition. While IPRA conducts a thorough investigation, we will not wait to look for ways we can learn from this incident.
According to a memo seen by FoxNews.com, authorities said making the video of Paul O’Neal’s death public, coupled with the August 9 anniversary of Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Mo., “may cause an uptick in violence against police nationwide”.
O’Neal’s family has hired a lawyer and filed a wrongful death lawsuit.
Chicago Fraternal Order of Police President Dean Angelo said it was important the public not rush to judgment of the officers involved in the shooting.
“We have to say that it is possible in the heat of the moment the officer did not think to turn on his camera”, he said.
Additionally, neither department explicitly makes body-camera footage available to civilians who file complaints against police. “I don’t know who was shooting in the alley”. Every time an officer shoots anybody while his or her body camera is turned off, doubts will be raised, even when the shooting is justified.
Oppenheimer said O’Neal’s family viewed the video Friday, and relatives were so distraught that they left without speaking to the media.
In all, nine videos were released from both body cameras and at least one dashboard camera.
On Monday, in Baltimore County, Maryland, Korryn Shandawn Gaines, 23, was shot and killed after a seven-hour standoff with police. Brown also said the community needs to act strategically in response to seeing the video, not violently. “What do we need to train our officers better?”
A police shooting in Chicago last week raises another question: what happens when policies aren’t followed. “Footage can be misleading or incomplete and allowing officers to preview footage provides an opportunity to conform reports to what the video appears to show rather than what the officer recollects”.
The majority of departments did not receive high marks, including Rochester, which just this week rolled out the first nine of an expected 505 body cameras for the department’s officers, according to WHAM-TV.
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“Body-worn cameras hold tremendous promise for enhancing transparency, promoting accountability, and advancing public safety for law enforcement officers and the communities they serve”, said Attorney General Loretta Lynch last spring while announcing $23.2 million in grants by the Justice Department that could aid smaller police departments in obtaining body cameras.
